Abstract:
This paper seeks
to explore first a brief history of the First Amendment freedoms of
religion. Second, the nature of the
conflict between those who support a literal interpretation of the free
exercise of religion and those who believe free and, particularly, open
exercise should be limited. Why are
public prayer, particularly in schools and expression of religious belief
considered something to be feared by the secularists; and, furthermore, is it
unreasonable to expect those who worship and pray to do so in private? Additionally, what are the motives of those who
wish to suppress public displays of religious expression? Finally, who are the people who make up the
secular movement in America which leads the opposition to public displays of
religious beliefs?
Religion has played a tremendous role in both the
colonization of America and the birth of the United States. People fleeing religious control and
persecution traveled in droves to the New World, with hopes of the ability to
worship freely. The Founders believed it
to be fundamental to protect the free exercise of religion and sought to
immortalize this concept in their founding document and principal law. However, as the years, decades, and centuries
have past, what free exercise means has been contested. The secularist movement advocates the freedom
to worship (seemingly) only in private while proponents of a more broad
understanding of the concept believe the freedom to exercise should be
relatively unlimited. This is a
political battle that tears away at the very fabric of this nation and promises
to only heighten in the coming years.
From the ‘discovery’ of the New World, religion played an
integral part of its formation and development.
Additionally, the Great Awakening served as the “original dynamic of the
continental movement for independence” (Johnson, 1997, p. 204). With a foundation so steeped in religious
tradition it is rather amazing that religion was not ordained by the state and
that the founders held so stridently to the belief that people should be free
to choose whether and how to worship. To
the founders then and many today, it is important that the ability to exercise
their religious beliefs be free of government intrusion. Just as they knew the risks of executive
tyranny, legislative tyranny, and majoritarian tyranny; they had also known
that religion could be tyrannical. James
Madison wrote this on June 20, 1785:
“Who does not
see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of
all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of
Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects” (1997, p. 191)?
Madison, as did many
founders, knew that any group or faction could easily, if unchecked, exert
enough power to control or limit the liberties of another group; and religious
groups were not above this temptation either, which is a proven historical
fact. It was the understanding of the existence
of a “degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of
circumspection and distrust” that was the inspiration for the rule of law laid
out in the Constitution and his subsequent writing of the First Amendment (Madison,
Federalist 55, pg. 314). Ultimately, the essence of the First
Amendment’s guarantees of free exercise and the freedom from a government
ordained establishment of religion was to defend the rights of those people to
engage in what may be, from time to time, unpopular practices and beliefs; and
to inhibit the government from prescribing upon the people any singular
religious institution.
The First
Amendment clearly states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” These terms, although simple, are unequivocal
and leave no practical or substantial room for interpretation; any laws made by
Congress either restricting or endorsing religion could easily be considered
unconstitutional. The First Amendment
“stands primarily as a bulwark for religious liberty for all men…freedom of
conscience is beyond the control of any civil authority” (Dawson, 1959,
pg.667). Somewhere along the way, however,
the argument shifted from the preservation of a right of people to engage in their
faith to an argument of constitutionality which serves to inhibit individuals
and groups from such an engagement. Clearly
the intent was to remove government from determining religious affiliation, and
religious establishments from directly impacting governmental decisions; but
recently it has been viewed as a tool to control inconvenient and moderately
unpopular expression of religion; particularly in public.
This
is not to say that contradiction has not always surrounded the First
Amendment’s religious protections. It
could easily be said that the controversy somewhat began with the First
Congress’ hiring of paid chaplains in 1789.
Madison’s own writings illustrate his distaste of this practice and his
view that the concept of congressional chaplains was unconstitutional because,
as he wrote in a memorandum after 1817: “the Constitution forbids everything like an
establishment of a national religion.
The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the
national representatives…to be paid out of the national taxes…Does not this
involve the principal of a national establishment” (1997, pg. 87).
Ironically,
Chief Justice Burger, in the decision written for Marsh v. Chambers references this very early congressional action
of hiring chaplains. Marsh v. Chambers was a suit began by
Ernest Chambers, a member of the Nebraska legislature, in which he asserted
that the practice of maintaining a paid chaplain violated the Establishment
Clause of the Constitution. In the
Court’s finding, which reversed the lower court’s ruling, Chief Justice Burger
drew a correlation between the actions of the First Congress and the tradition
of the Nebraska legislature. Furthermore,
Chief Justice Burger (1983) asserted that it must be Constitutional when he
stated:
“It
can hardly be thought that, in the same week, Members of the First Congress
voted to appoint and to pay a chaplain for each House and also voted to approve
the draft of the First Amendment for submission to the states, they intended
the Establishment Clause of the Amendment to forbid what they had just declared
acceptable” (Marsh v. Chambers, 463
U.S. 783).
However logical his
conclusion may seem on the surface, what the Chief Justice ignored was the
sentiment of the man, James Madison, who drafted the amendment. Chief Justice Burger’s evidence on this
ruling was largely circumstantial and based on the assumption that the act of
the First Congress in hiring chaplains, by default, proved the
constitutionality of the Nebraska legislature’s practice.
The
modern secular argument is that a separation of church and state was created in
the First Amendment, which is fundamentally accurate. In fact, the phrase “wall of separation” was
used by Thomas Jefferson; referring to the idea that one should not affect the
other. This concept of a “wall of
separation” evolved into the common terminology of modern times, “separation of
church and state.” Separation of church
and state has become the battle cry of the secular movement, which has gained
remarkable popularity in recent decades.
The effort to suppress some forms of public worship and public display has
made the First Amendment a weapon to be used against the ‘enemies’ of the
secularists.
School prayer is probably the most contested area of this
battle between the two groups. In a line
of court rulings beginning with Engel v.
Vitale (1962) there has been a gradual fight to all but extinguish the
practice. The contention in Engel was that a local New York school district, “acting on the
recommendation of the New York Board of Regents, adopted a resolution directing
the daily recitation” of a prayer (Kauper, 1963, pg. 1033). Furthermore, the rule carried no provision
for the allowance of students not wishing to participate to refrain, but there
was instruction within it that “no child was to be required or encouraged to
join in the prayer” (Kauper, 1963, pg. 1033).
This regulation was ultimately ruled by the Court to be unconstitutional
and, as Justice Black wrote, “by using its school system to encourage
recitation of the Regents’ prayer…has adopted a practice wholly inconsistent
with the Establishment Clause” (Kauper, 1963, pg. 1037). However, this was not an unreasonable ruling
and did not serve to fully foreshadow the battle to come.
Just one year later, the Supreme Court was “called upon
to consider the scope of the provision of the First Amendment to the United
States Constitution” in School District
of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203(Justice Clark,
1963). In Schempp, the contest was over a state law which required that:
“At least ten
verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of
each public school on each school day.
Any child shall be excused from such Bible reading, or attending such
Bible reading, upon the written request of his parent or guardian” (Justice
Black, 1963).
It was contended that
this law violated the application of the First Amendment of the Constitution to
the states under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court ruled that this law did in fact violate the Establishment
Clause as it pertains to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment. However, Justice Clark (1963) wrote in the
decision of the Court a test for the determination of what does or does not
constitute an encroachment upon the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise:
“What are the
purpose and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement
or inhibition of religion, then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative
power as circumscribed by the Constitution. That is to say that, to withstand
the strictures of the Establishment Clause, there must be a secular legislative
purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion…The
Free Exercise Clause, likewise considered many times here, withdraws from
legislative power, state and federal, the exertion of any restraint on the free
exercise of religion. Its purpose is to secure religious liberty in the
individual by prohibiting any invasions thereof by civil authority. Hence, it
is necessary in a free exercise case for one to show the coercive effect of the
enactment as it operates against him in the practice of his religion.
Once again, this seems
to have been a reasonable assertion under the First Amendment; however, as the
years moved forward, there has been an effort to do more than merely prevent
government organizations from instituting religious practices in school. Instead, the trend has been to create a
barrier between people and religion when in the public view.
Should
a school, school board, or even a state impose religious practices on school
children? Being that schools and school
boards are government entities, the constitutional legitimacy of public school
mandated prayer or worship seems to be easily relatable to the words of Madison
and Justice Black. Since the Schempp ruling, however, the lines have
blurred a bit. The struggle between
those who advocate an unobstructed freedom to worship in any setting and the
secular movement has grown bitter in recent decades. From cases on the constitutionality of
student led prayer, as was the case in Santa
Fe Independent School District v. Doe to cases as to whether a high school
coach may kneel along with his players during student led prayer; the question
we need to ask may be why there is such fervent opposition to any public
expression of religious faith? Is it a
restriction of one’s civil liberties if another nearby is praying? What precisely is the endgame?
Perhaps
the most relevant question when determining the motivation behind the attempts
to restrict religion and consign it to a private and controlled behavior
is: What is the secular movement that
drives these attempts? As the history of
opposition to certain public displays of religion has been laid out we can see
the reasonable become the absurd. Why
must our society be cleansed of ‘faith?’
It does not seem to be the concept of faith which drives this movement,
but which people have faith that
feeds the urgency, particularly the young of the nation. Perhaps it is not any God or religion that
the secularists deplore, but the desire to replace that central figure which is
the goal. Simply put, it may be that the
secularists do not dislike God; they just wish to have His job.
The
secular movement has traditionally been a small and rather unpopular movement
in America, tied often to the progressive movement; and this is no
coincidence. The movement in itself
shows signs of religious tendencies and has always “expected that a
progressive, secular ‘kingdom’ would emerge as societies threw off a primitive
theistic mindset and matured into educated adulthood” (Cimino & Smith,
2007, pg. 407). Secular humanism in the
U.S. is rooted in religious humanism, with these roots found in the Unitarian
and Universalist ideology that emerged after a “segment of Congregational
churches in the eighteenth century rejected such key Christian doctrines as the
Trinity and the teaching that God can condemn people to hell” (Cimino &
Smith, 2007, pg. 407). In effect,
secularism is its own religion and feels compelled to compete directly with
other religions for followers. The
growth of secularism began greatly during the late nineteenth and throughout
the twentieth century; as the movement picked up momentum we can see the
assaults on traditional religious beliefs begin to increase and become more
specified (Cimino & Smith, 2007, pg. 408).
By increasing their focus on reframing the beliefs of society through
children, through the constant challenges to any form of religious practice in
school; we can more easily begin to divine the secularist intent.
The
movement to control as much of the religious consumption of school-aged
children was seen in recent years when a young girl at a small-town public high
school in Pace, Florida was barred from delivering the valedictorian speech at
her graduation. Amidst other
church-state controversies being raised at her school by the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) the young girl, a Christian, promised to include a
prayer in her remarks. This was seen as
a threat by the secularists at the ACLU and as part of their settlement with
the high school gained inclusion of a provision to prevent a prayer in the
student speeches. Thus, she was not
allowed to speak and forced to forfeit the honor that was, or should have been,
the result of her efforts and studies.
The ACLU viewed her to be a representative of the school and faculty due
to her honors and, by giving a prayer, would then have been considered to violate
the Establishment Clause. Did this young
lady pose a threat to other children or adults in the audience who did not
share her same religious views? It is
unlikely, and because she was viewed as such, she was robbed of her right to
exercise both her religious beliefs and the rewards of her efforts; both seem
to be worthy objectives of the secularists.
Karl
Marx (1848) wrote in the Communist
Manifesto that:
“Undoubtedly,
it will be said, religious, moral, philosophical and juridical ideas have been
modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political
science, and law, constantly survived this change. There are, besides, eternal truths, such as
Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it
abolishes all religion and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new
basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience” (pgs.
33-34).
This is goal of the
secular movement; to abolish religion and morality and replace it with its own
‘truths’ and morals. Mere modification
of traditional norms and mores of society is insufficient to meet the goals; instead
a complete cleaning of the slate is required.
There is no better place to enact such a shift in philosophy and faith
than in the most formative and influential part of the population for the
future of the nation. The state must
replace God as the center of all praise, thanks, and prayer; for it is the
state which serves as the Providence of the secular movement. In the case of Lenin, who called for the
complete elimination of religion, folk stories began to arise very shortly
after his death claiming he was immortal and had risen from the dead to keep
watch over the Soviet power (Tumarkin, 1981, pgs. 36-37). This imagery runs very similar with the
messianic figure found in Christianity, and this is likely not a coincidence. Tumarkin (1981) further points out that in
order for Marxism to survive in Russia, it had to “accommodate to that nation’s
spiritual climate” (pg. 38). Ultimately,
for Lenin to put his plan into effect, he would have to become the “god” that
the people of Russia so very much needed.
We can see similarities in modern day communist regimes; where the
leaders often attempt to portray themselves as something beyond human. Images of communist leaders can seem to cover
the landscape of the nations they lead for the purpose of transcending simple
human leadership and create an image of them as a god or savior.
Eugene Schoenfeld (1985), Georgia State University,
published a study designed to test the theories of Marx and Engels which
asserted that religion “induces a sense of commitment and loyalty to the ruling
elite” (pg. 178). Schoenfeld’s focus was
on the relationship between people who engage in religious adherence and their
level of loyalty to the President of the United States. If Marx and Engels assertions were accurate,
Schoenfeld expected to find a direct correlation between people who attend
church and pray and their level of loyalty to the primary ‘ruling’ figure of
American politics, the president.
Schoenfeld (1985) noted that Marxist doctrine states that the interests
of the “ruling class…are safeguarded by theologically defined rules” (pg.
179). While Schoenfeld’s study found a
correlation between church attendance, it also found an inverse relationship
between prayer and loyalty to the president (1985, pg. 186). Schoenfeld (1985) indicated that the most
important factor weighing on loyalty to a ruling elite was based on the
adherence to the collective practices of religion and not the religion in
itself (pg. 186).
It seems a bit ironic that if Marx truly believed
religion enhanced loyalty to a leader or a collective that he would not want
such loyalty to serve the collective of his socialist utopia. Such an adherence to collectivism and the
acceptance of the communal preeminence would seem quite advantageous in
maintaining proper levels of production that could support the socialist
dream. Combining that logical deficiency
with the practical deistic awe paid to communist rulers, it seems perhaps
Marx’s words were a ploy to incite his proletariat against the establishment
that threatened his dream the most; religion.
For Marx’s utopian fantasy to be a plausible reality, it would be the
collective that must be worshipped and shown deference to.
Nineteenth century economist and author Frederic Bastiat
did much of his writing just before and immediately following the French
Revolution of 1848, when a socialist frenzy was engulfing France. Bastiat (1850) identified the doublespeak of
Marx and Engels in reference to religion and its supposed deficiencies while
claiming righteousness of the socialist cause when he wrote:
“But we assure
the socialist that we repudiate only forced
organization, not natural organization.
We repudiate the forms of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We repudiate forced fraternity, not true fraternity. We repudiate the artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of
individual responsibility. We do not
repudiate the natural unity of mankind under Providence” (pg. 29).
Bastiat saw clearly the
hypocrisy of the proposition that religion should be ceased only to replace it
with one of another form that instead had its foundation in a new kind of
fraternity based on the worship of the state and the collective. Although Bastiat’s view was framed in a very
deistic fashion similar to that of our own founders; he clearly recognized that
it was the desire of the socialists to replace religion, not merely abolish
it. We meet the same challenges today as
the secular progressive movement attempts to fundamentally dispel the legitimacy
of religion and to replace that institution with one that comes in the form of
the state.
The true mastery of the secular movement is that it has
framed the argument as being religion versus freedom when, ultimately, the
secular view is that freedom will come through proper regulation and control of
the population; particularly in religious practice. They do not wish to maintain that people are
free to believe, but that instead they appear to believe that freedom will be
obtained when people are not bound by their current beliefs. Certainly, people are restrained by their
beliefs, whatever those beliefs may be.
If a person subscribes to the ideas of Christianity, Buddhism, or Islam
is irrelevant; they will be bound to certain behavior through their specific
belief structure. The flaw in the
secular argument is that being ‘free’ from religious preconceptions will create
a society of elevated freethinkers. In
fact, with religion extracted from the equation, a new belief system will most
certainly fill in the gaps; as the saying goes, nature hates a vacuum.
The mere concept of civilization requires us to follow
some sort of norms and we can see much disparity between different
civilizations view of what is normal, acceptable, and required. However, the constant that exist in all
societies is that there are norms, mores, and laws that dictate and control the
actions of each society’s members. If it
were true that the secularists wish to eliminate the existence of these norms,
the result could only be an anarchist society filled with, potentially, 350
million separate societies that consist of one member each. Secularists are not so naïve to believe this
would be a tenable situation; instead, their goal is a shift of the paradigm of
existing moral precepts to a new morality and even a new reality. By eliminating the dichotomy of differing
belief systems, it becomes easier to replace with a unitary belief
structure. The means of producing this
new reality in the United States relies heavily on time because the odds of a
violent and instantaneous uprising that would bring about such a change is much
less likely than it was during the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. The capitalist economy has performed far
beyond that which Marx ever imagined and the existence of a large middle class
is an obstacle to radical and immediate change.
Therefore to aid in such a shift it is a foundational necessity that
beliefs and morality must be circumvented in order to accelerate the change
that the secular progressives desire.
The issue at hand is not so much that people hold beliefs
or have faith, but more of what those beliefs and that faith is in. The dominant religious philosophy in America
is Christianity and it should come as no surprise that Christianity is the
primary religion that is under assault by the secularists. Minority religions maintain a heightened
level of protection by secularist groups with the understanding that it is the
largest section of the population that must be first controlled. Through a natural competition that exists
among religions, much the same as exists in commerce, the minority religions
then become an ally of the secular movement; as the proverb goes, “the enemy of
my enemy is my friend.” Once a large
enough of a majority joins the secular mindset, the minority religions would
pose little resistance to the newly established status quo of ‘faith.’ Certainly, this sounds conspiratorial, but is
rooted in historical fact. It is despots
and dictators who wish to control religious practice because if you can control
the foundational beliefs of a people, you then easily control them. It is the process of introducing a new norm
into society, one that allows a rewrite of historical experiences that is the
challenge.
Religion occupies a position of significance in all
societies; it is the perfect mechanism for controlling populations and often
answers questions which would otherwise be unanswerable. Fear is a central determiner of individual
and societal behavior from a religious perspective. Whether it is a fear of the unknown, the fear
of consequences for ‘sinful’ behavior, or the fear of being disassociated; religions
are naturally suited for population control through basic human fear and
anxieties. Additionally, they provide comfort to their followers through a
promise of an eventual reward. Religion
assures its members that regardless of current strife, adherence to the
provisions of the religion will assure them a better reward than can be
imagined. We find similar attempts at assurance
in the progressive movement, consequences for dissident behavior, and the
promise that the questions of life can be answered through the proper changes
in individual behavior. The correlation
between government and religion does exist and it is the religious freedom in
America that prevents the progressive view of government from fully taking its
place as the singular sovereign over the minds of the people.
Schoenfeld (1985) concluded his aforementioned study by
pointing out about religion that:
“Instead of
supporting the power elite has been in the forefront of revolutions…there are
some elements in religion which do not bind the individual to the dominant
culture and do not instill loyalty to the ruling elite, but to the contrary,
free the individual from the social bonds and social constraints…In short, we
propose that praying does not bind the individual to the collective, does not
provide for the social cohesion a function which has been attributed to
religion, but, instead frees the praying individual (pg. 187).”
Perhaps it is for this
reason that prayer, particularly in public settings, is a threat to the secular
progressive cause. Prayer does not
enslave its practitioners, or serve as the opium of the people as Marx suggested,
but instead releases those who engage in the activity from the potential
bondage of a society or any immoral changes within a given society. It is of great importance that we delve
deeper into the topic than the cursory explanation for the war on public
prayer. For such an non-invasive
practice to cause so much emotional response on those not engaged in it is
peculiar and should be seen as a warning sign. It is reasonable to wish to reduce the
likelihood of any type of government forced indoctrination; however, mainstream
religion does not threaten us with this.
Instead it appears to give those who practice it a weapon against
indoctrination, a shield from the enslavement of the mind, and a moral ground
from which to make decisions throughout life; it hardly seems reasonable that
this would be a threat to the spirit of the United States or the laws from
which it was established.
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